Former Racing Bulls Team Principal Franz Tost has warned Liam Lawson “must never try to compete” with Max Verstappen at Red Bull during the 2025 Formula 1 campaign.
Tost, who was Team Principal of Racing Bulls through its guises as Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri from 2006 to 2023, had the pleasure of witnessing Lawson’s GP debut with the team at Zandvoort last summer.
A further 10 GP starts later, Lawson has now been handed the task of replacing Sergio Perez at Red Bull next year, winning out in the promotion chase over Yuki Tsunoda.
Perez, like several drivers before him succumbed to the pressure of racing alongside the now four-time F1 Drivers’ Champion Verstappen and Tost has warned Lawson cannot fall into the same trap.
“Both Tsunoda and Lawson deserved the promotion,” Tost told F1-Insider.
“All I can say about Liam is that he needs to do his own thing and never try to compete with Max Verstappen.
“Max is one of the greatest of all time, on a par with Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna.
“He is nowhere near his peak and has endless potential.”
Red Bull doesn’t want to put ‘pressure’ on Lawson
Like Tost, Horner doesn’t underestimate the challenge of racing alongside Verstappen at Red Bull.
It is a challenge that Perez succumbed to and the likes of Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon struggled with.
Speaking to ESPN, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner said Lawson is going up against a generational talent in Verstappen.
“I think the key thing is not to put too much pressure on him and not to put too much pressure on himself that he’s going out against the best driver of his generation,” Horner explained.
“And I think that he just needs to almost ignore the data of what’s going on on Car 1 and just focus with his own engineering team, what he’s doing, and just do the best job that he can and he’ll be fine. And hopefully we can support him in that.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to provide a car that suits him as well as Max next year, and we’ll see how he goes.”
But what does the Kiwi himself think?
Speaking ahead of the move, Lawson told select media including Motorsport Week “I think it would be the biggest challenge to go up against Max.
“In a way it’s the best seat on the grid to be in,” the New Zealander added.
“You get to learn directly off the best guy.
“To have access to his data every single session, to see exactly how he’s performing.
“For me as a driver who’s come into Formula 1, and is developing, it’s the best possible situation for me to be in.”
READ MORE – What Liam Lawson thinks about going up against Max Verstappen at Red Bull
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